Stand-to! update Beginning May 2022, STAND-TO! will no longer be published on Army.mil and/or distributed to its subscribers. Please continue to learn about the U.S. Army on www.army.mil and follow @USArmy on our social media platforms. Thank you for your continued interest in learning about the U.S. Army.

Army Readiness Assessment Program

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

What is it?

The Army Readiness Assessment Program (ARAP) is a web-based tool that provides battalion or equivalent commanders with data on their formations’ readiness posture by sampling unit safety climate and culture from Soldiers in five key areas: process auditing, reward systems, quality control, risk management, and command and control.

What has the Army done?

In a profession with inherent risks, it is incumbent upon organizations to manage factors affecting safety climate and culture. Leaders recognize ARAP as the only safety assessment tool that provides direct feedback to assist in utilizing limited resources and saving lives. Commanders use ARAP as not only a safety management tool to assess their organizations, but also to gain perspective as to why individuals accept unnecessary risk. Per Army Regulation 385-10, commanders or their representatives must ensure all battalion and equivalent organizations enroll in ARAP within 90 days of assuming command.

Why is this important to the Army?

Leaders are integrating ARAP as a key component in accomplishing their annual safety objectives. Using ARAP results, leaders and supervisors can be more proactive in developing preventive measures to reduce accidental loss. At the close of fiscal 2015, Soldiers across the Army had completed nearly two million surveys a number reflecting leader beliefs that ARAP is an indispensable part of every organization’s strategic safety plan. As an institutionalized program, ARAP will continue to provide metrics for assessing safety climate and culture, thereby facilitating needed change and saving lives.

What does the Army have planned for the future?

It is critical that safety programs be focused on and relevant to addressing risky behaviors. To support leaders across the Army, the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center is currently developing a new and enhanced ARAP to provide more precise data to individual leaders and units. Some upgraded features include more opportunities for written comments, commander/director opportunities to create their own write-in questions, and detailed reports based upon a participant’s functional role in the command. The upgraded version is scheduled for beta testing around March 2016 and will be deployed late summer 2016.

Resources:

Subscribe to STAND-TO! to learn about the U.S. Army initiatives.